Representation by Opinion

The summer moves along and in the process I've had opportunity to present the Al Gore "Inconvenient Truth" slideshow on numerous occasions.  The training for it was done in Montreal in April (see earlier blog), but the summer has provided the first real chance to do a series of these presentations.Almost immediately, certain things became clear.  Most striking was that, even in the doldrums of the summer season, citizens are interested in this issue.  They came out, brought their kids, and demonstrated a more intense interest than I imagined. Naturally, some attending were the Liberal faithful but many others had no particular political affiliation.  They were there just to either educate themselves more on what is rapidly becoming the issue of our time, or they felt the need to be with others who shared similar concerns.Some questions about Stephane Dion's "Green Shift" were asked, but I informed those individuals that I was there to present Gore's slides in a non-partisan forum. Nevertheless, I was queried repeatedly about why the media has taken to judging Dion's plan negatively right out of the gate.  They felt it was far too important an issue to just spout off on.  The issue for them was no so much that the "Green Shift" was right or wrong.  Instead, they fretted that the negative context in which pundits portrayed the Dion plan might have the adverse effect of restraining the population from making the kind of environmental changes needed for the future.I have to say that I agree with them.  My wife and I have worked with media - local and national - repeatedly over the last 22 years and I am aware of the difference between news reporting and punditry. Like anyone else, I read the national columnists each morning and often learn from many of their reasoned points of view.  But I grow increasingly concerned that some in the business are behaving more like the politicians they are supposed to be observing.  The moment one party comes out with an idea, the rest descend upon it with a vengeance, often limiting the ability to find compromise in a minority parliament. While seeing all this as something natural to political theatre, the columnists opine about "hyper-partisanship" or "political games" during a time when serious discourse should be displayed.I now fret that if we look to our political and media discourse, the present signs are not encouraging.  Both slide into the practice of soliciting our votes or readership by appealing to a kind of "hucksterism" in an effort to get our attention, rather than taking on the role of honorable advocates offering citizens reasoned and well-informed thoughts designed to empower them in their daily citizen lives.We are so practiced in this as political figures right now that we find the public yearning for something more authentic.  Yet these sessions in the summer have shown me that the same public is looking for media to take on a more responsible and reflective role - not just of the facts of any case or issue, but for the context in which it has to play itself out.Thomas Jefferson remains one of my favorite authors and his books line my shelves. One quote stands out in this context: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. The people cannot be safe without information."If the recent science of climate change has any credibility (which it clearly has), then our population is clearly not "safe."  And so we are supposed to look to our politicians and pundits in hopes of framing the national discussion ... and we turn away disappointed.But there is a difference, and it is key to our understanding.  Politicians are elected by the population and in many cases have limited shelf lives.  Yet in the world of punditry, more and more things are becoming "representation by opinion."  And there is no end to opinions.  The really good columnists - and there are some very responsible ones - have mostly been with us for a while and have assisted us in the national discourse.  But with the addition of thousands of blogs, more opinion makers in media, and the endless 24-hour cycle of the modern news world, opinion has crowded out reason, clouding our national reason in the process.What we are increasingly being left with is "noise" - the kind that turns people irritable, or, worse yet, tunes them out altogether.And this is my worry about what many of the citizens have been saying during these summer sessions. Prior to any great national issue - World War Two, the flag debate, the era of debt in the 1990s - there are always opinions.  And from that activity, the sheer scale of the urgent issue eventually focuses the national mind and leads to action.  But not here.  Instead, the people giving their repeated opinions are our elected leaders and our pundits, and that focussing of the national mind is not forthcoming.The Green Shift is ultimately about climate change, and on that issue most Canadians agree.  Yet our opinion givers have failed to gather up that latent agreement and turn it into national action - primarily because they are too busy providing their view of the "trees" as opposed to the "forest."  It is said to be foolish to criticize the media, but I have also attempting to be honest about political failure. I have no wish to court animosity but I do believe the reality of climate change is about to dwarf us all.I commend every politician and columnist who has bucked this trend.  I have known some personally and have been enlightened by their very involvement and engagement.  But the cottage industry of "opinion" grows and with it a lack of citizen action.  There are only a little over 300 politicians, however, whereas the army of opinion givers is growing and they are legion.